


the stars are not wanted now

by astudyinrose



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Just... lots of angst, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock's Funeral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 19:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2162298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinrose/pseuds/astudyinrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;<br/>Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;<br/>Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.<br/>For nothing now can ever come to any good.</p><p>[John goes through the five stages of grief after Sherlock's death.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	the stars are not wanted now

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Erin](http://bookaddled.tumblr.com) for always being there to beta for me and to comfort me when I'm in the throes of johnlock angst. 
> 
> Also thanks to [Clem](http://piningjohn.tumblr.com) for the angst which prompted this-- specifically [this post.](http://piningjohn.tumblr.com/post/94692394847/astudyinrose-replied-to-your-post-astudyinrose)

 

 

Quiet reigns in lifeless places.

The flat was quiet, and it would remain that way from now on. 

John had packed up the few belongings from his room in a box, leaving it at the top of the stairs, before going back to sit in his chair.

As he sat there, hour after hour, his brain automatically brought forth memories of when the empty chair across from him had been filled. Ghosts of its previous occupant in a strop, or gesturing wildly to John about his latest deduction, floated before him and disappeared again.

The silence intensified, if that was possible. The sun died and night fell, but he didn’t get up to turn on any lights.

John knew, in the way someone is aware of something but can’t bring themselves to change it, that he should go to bed. He probably also should call Harry, or Lestrade. 

He didn’t do any of those things. Instead he just sat there, staring at the chair across from him, his bare feet curled on the carpet. He hadn’t even cried. That’s what people usually do, don’t they?

He had expected to feel pain, or at least some kind of emotional or physical manifestation of grief. Losing the most important person in your life was probably supposed to be painful, but he didn’t feel anything. It was as if his entire body had gone numb.

Grief was supposed to be the feeling of release; of catharsis, and letting go. That’s probably what the crying was for.

He’d seen grief many times before, etched on faces, written in trembling hands. He’d felt it before, too, in a way. He had seen men die-- good men, friends-- more times than he cared to contemplate.

A doctor, especially an army doctor, wasn’t just a healer. He had two functions: heal the sick, and comfort the living. John couldn’t have comforted those who had lost someone if he’d allowed himself to mourn at the same time. He’d looked straight into the eyes of hundreds of devastated people over the years, but had trained himself never to shed a tear. 

Now, though, he was _supposed_ to mourn. He was the one who had lost someone. 

Loss. Did that even encompass what had happened? Loss implies that something had been taken without the will of any parties involved.  It wasn’t as though Sherlock had wasted away slowly due to cancer, or had died suddenly and violently in an accident, such as being hit by a cab. He’d chosen to do this. Was that still loss?

Silence seemed to echo against the blank walls, roaring in his ears. 

As the morning sunlight started to filter into the flat, and John realized that he had been sitting in his chair all night long without moving.

Time passing was a strange thing. It was ephemeral, intangible, yet could be portioned into neat increments. Mankind was always trying to measure the immeasurable, to create meaning where there was none.

The sun chased itself across his floor, and he watched it go. 

Eventually there was a knock on the door. “John?” Mrs. Hudson’s voice. He didn’t respond, but the door opened and she came in anyway.

“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Hudson sounded distressed.  

“John.” She was right next to him, now, but he didn’t look up. He was tired, so tired. He probably should have slept, but he’d been too tired to sleep. Sherlock would have said that was an oxymoron.

Her wizened hand was on his shoulder. “We have to get going to the… service. You’d best change."

“I know,” John said hoarsely. They were the first words he’d uttered in about two days. His voice felt unused, rough.

Her hand was gone, and he heard her saying something about tea. John ripped his gaze from the empty chair for the first time in hours and went to take a scalding shower. He still couldn’t feel anything.

 

* * *

It was a closed coffin-- by familial request, according to the coroner. 

John stared at the lid, shiny and polished, with something akin to rage. From a clinical point of view, rage wasn’t an abnormal reaction to seeing the box containing your dead best friend. Somehow that didn’t really matter. Nothing had seemed “normal” since he’d felt the lack of pulse in that thin wrist, and it felt like nothing ever would again.

The anger pulsed through him in waves, white-hot. At least he felt _something_ , not just the all-encompassing numbness that had been paralyzing him for days. 

If he’d been able to say another word to Sherlock, it would probably be bitter, filled with rage. _You killed yourself in front of my eyes. Not only that, you made me watch, Sherlock. You made me_ _watch_ _._

Ella would probably say that he was mostly pissed off at himself. She would be right. Staring at that chair all night, the last words he’d said to Sherlock before the roof had come back to haunt him. In his anger, he’d flung out the words he’d known would hurt the most. He had always seethed with anger whenever anyone had called Sherlock a freak-- he’d even punched the Commissioner for saying it-- and yet he’d said something far worse.

_You machine._

Machines break. They don’t die. 

They also can’t elect to kill themselves.

John forced himself to put his hand on the coffin, over where Sherlock’s head would be, but as his fingers touched the cool, polished wood, he felt nothing. Even the rage vanished, like the whistle of wind on the air.

“John.” Mycroft appeared next to him, holding his usual umbrella. It seemed almost comical in this context, like a prop in a play.

John didn’t respond. There was nothing to say, really.

Mycroft cleared his throat. “He will be buried in St. Anne’s this afternoon. You can visit tomorrow.”

“What?” John snapped, removing his hand.

Mycroft looked… grim, but he always looked grim. He didn’t look devastated, as one might expect someone to look at his brother’s funeral. In fact, every part of his immaculate suit and carefully calculated presence was the same as it always was.

John decided that he was bloody pissed at Mycroft, too. 

“It was his wish to be buried without prying eyes. As I said, you can visit once he has been interred.” 

John’s fists clenched at his sides. _Prying eyes?_ What did that even _mean_?

Mycroft’s eyes flicked over John in that coolly-evaluating way that the Holmes brothers always seemed to utilize. When his eyes met John’s, though, they were just the tiniest bit softer, which was almost unnerving. 

Mycroft twiddled his umbrella handle. “Would you like to say something?”

John swallowed, sticking his hand in his pocket and curling it around a page from a book, which he’d torn out the night before.

“Yeah, I… um.” He cleared his throat, averting his eyes. “Yeah.”

He saw Mycroft nod in his peripheral vision, and go sit in the front row.

John turned his back on the coffin and looked out at the seats, which were mostly empty. Lestrade, Mycroft, and Mrs. Hudson were the only other people in the room. They all looked up at him expectantly, and he frowned back at them. 

The rage came back in full force. There were so many people in the world who Sherlock had helped, and none of them had come. Only three people. _Three._  Sherlock’s parents hadn’t even shown up.

He was angry at almost everyone, it seemed. It was exhausting.

John took out the page, looking down, because he couldn’t quite stand to meet anyone’s eye right now.

“I…” he cleared his throat again, and he heard Mrs. Hudson let out a stifled sob. This was so much harder than he had thought it was going to be, so much harder than he had imagined in his head when he’d planned this moment. 

“I know there are certain phrases you’re supposed to say at these things. Words like, ‘he was a good man,’ and that kind of thing.”

John paused again, realizing that the sheet of paper was shaking. The tremor in his hand was back. He switched the page to his other hand and clenched his fist. “Sherlock… well, he was a total arsehole.”

He heard Lestrade smother a snort, which gave him at least enough courage to look upward. There was a crack in the dingy white plaster of the back wall, and he tried to focus on it.

“I think we all knew that he wasn’t, really, but that’s the facade he chose to show to the world.” John cleared his throat. “He told me the night before he… died, that ‘alone was what he had, alone protected him.’ He was wrong. Alone was what killed him, in the end. He never saw that we were here, the whole time.”

The wall was getting fuzzy, but he went on. “You never think that the last time you talk to someone is going to be the last time. You always think you’ll get another chance to say... what you want to say.”

He was increasingly aware of the fluorescent lights that were beating down on his head, and the sickly-sweet scent of flowers and candles. He felt nauseated.

“I just wish I had told him, even just once… that he was my best friend. I don’t think I ever even said it to him. I never told him… I never said so many things I should have.” 

 _I never told him that I loved him_.

His stomach dropped out at the thought. 

“I--I can’t…” he shook his head, realizing he was losing it. “I’m not good… I’m not good at this stuff. I…”

 _Shit._ He was absolute shit at this. It was Sherlock’s funeral, and he couldn’t even give a fucking eulogy like a normal person. 

Mycroft stood. “John, you can sit down--"

“No. I… I brought this… to read. Just…” Mycroft froze, then nodded, sitting down.

John bit his lip, and looked down at the paper. 

The silence stretched on endlessly. He could hear the ticking of the second hand on the clock behind him, and the slight electrical flickering of the lights ahead. It was like some kind of nightmare-- one from which he could never awake. 

His mouth felt dry, but he swallowed and made himself begin.

“Stop… stop all the clocks. Cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.” He swallowed. “Silence the pianos, and with muffled drum, bring out the c-coffin, let… let the mourners come.”

He took a ragged breath and went on. “Let airplanes circle moaning overhead, scribbling on the sky the message: He Is Dead.”

His voice cracked on the last word. John’s eyes unfocused, and he realized he couldn’t read the rest. He just couldn’t.

John let his gaze rise to meet Lestrade’s. He looked absolutely wrecked, just a tiny bit of how horrible John felt.

“I’m sorry.” John crumpled up the page, turning away. 

It was too late. It was all too late. 

“Hey, mate.” Lestrade’s hand on his shoulder. “Want me to--”

“Yes, fine.” John shoved the paper back into his pocket, walking over to a seat at the edge. He held his head in his hands, barely listening as Lestrade said some words. 

Empty words, empty chair. Everything was empty. 

Except the coffin.

 

* * *

There are five stages of grief, Ella told him. He’d gone through the first three in a matter of days.  First was denial. Then anger-- which had apparently manifested at the funeral-- then bargaining. That would probably cover the “miracle” he’d asked for at Sherlock’s grave. 

_Stop this. Just…. stop. Stop being dead._

Depression was next. He knew it when it came, because it was exactly how he’d felt when he came back from Afghanistan. It felt like the numbness had settled into his bones again. He waited for it to end, and for acceptance to arrive. It didn’t.

A year and a half went by with no end in sight. For all he knew, the depression stage would last for the rest of his life. The limp returned, and he started using the cane again. 

He’d wake up from nightmares almost every night. Eventually, he stopped trying to sleep altogether. 

 

* * *

It was very early on a midwinter Tuesday morning. He’d gotten into the habit of coming into the surgery at dawn, because it was quiet and he could get a lot of work done. He’d stopped sleeping, so it was all the better, really.

But when he put his key in the door that day, it was already unlocked. He checked his watch. It was only half six. What in the bloody hell was someone else doing at the office that early?

“Hullo?” he called into the empty halls. He peeked around the corner, and saw that the light was on in one or two of the rooms.

He walked a bit further, wondering if this was some kind of break-in and cursing himself for having left his gun in its drawer.

“Anyone there?” he called out tentatively.

A woman’s head appeared from behind the door to the kitchen. She was blond, with short hair and kind eyes.  

“Oh, hello, Dr. Watson. They told me you might come in this early. Just making a cuppa, you want one?” She smiled and disappeared again. 

“What?” John felt irked, despite himself. He walked over to the door and peeked in. 

“Do come in,” the woman said, her back to him. She was steeping tea for two people.

“Who the _hell_ are you?” John blurted out.

She turned around, crossing her arms. “I’m the new nurse. I’ve replaced Donna.”

John blinked a bit, realizing that he didn’t actually know who that was.

The woman raised her eyebrows at him. “You know, the nurse who went on maternity leave?” 

“Er, yeah.” John rubbed the back of his neck, flushing slightly. He’d been a bit distracted lately, to be sure, but this was just embarrassing.

“Wow, they weren’t lying,” the woman said lightly.

“Lying?” John crossed his own arms, feeling a bit annoyed. 

“When they said you’ve been…” She looked at him with a disturbingly intense glare, the kind of gaze he’d only ever one other person use.

John lifted his chin slightly, refusing to think about that.

“You know what?” the woman said, pushing herself off the counter. “I think we need something stronger than tea. Fancy a coffee?”

John blinked again, slightly startled. “I, er… sure. Um.”

“Eloquent. I like that in a man.” The woman grinned again as she shrugged on her coat, walking toward the door.

“Wait, I still don’t even know who you are,” John said exasperatedly.

She paused, holding the door open. “Mary Morstan,” she said, winking. “Nice to meet you.”  

 

 

* * *

He stared at the rings in the window for far longer than was really necessary. 

There wasn’t any reason to be hesitant. This was his biggest chance at happiness for the rest of his life. That’s what Ella had said repeatedly anyway. He’d stopped going to sessions because he couldn’t stand the tedium of hearing her say the same thing over and over.

Their reservation at Mary’s favourite restaurant was for that night. He had to get going if he was to be home in time to shower and put on his best suit.

He looked at the door handle, which was only a step away. For some reason, it felt like a more difficult step than the one to Sherlock’s grave had been.

Once he made that step, he’d have to let himself finally move toward Acceptance, with a capital ‘A.’ That’s how he’d always imagined it when Ella had said the word, because she’d said it as if the phase were an achievement. At some point, he’d realized that he hadn’t wanted to move into Acceptance, because that would have meant letting Sherlock go. He knew it was holding him back from really being with Mary, in every real sense of the word, but he just couldn’t do it.

It hadn’t helped when Greg had shown up with that video. John had poured himself a huge scotch in order to watch it. He knew the warning signs of dangerous drinking behavior-- like Harry, he was drinking to numb himself, to forget-- but he had done it anyway.

To see Sherlock’s face, alive and talking directly to John, had been too much to bear. He’d gotten completely sloshed that night and didn't respond to Mary’s texts. For the next two days, he had regressed back to how bad he’d been that first week. 

He’d never been able to tell Ella that Sherlock wasn’t just his best friend. He’d never been able to say it to anyone, really. That’s why he’d tried to read the poem, because… well. Then at least someone would have known. At least he’d have admitted it to himself, even if it was too late to tell Sherlock.

He hadn’t finished the poem, though. It may have been partly due to the fact that he’d not wanted to admit how his entire life had been consumed by one person. That didn’t seem healthy, really, but it was the truth.

The other part was the fact that he’d never gotten the courage to ask Sherlock if it was the same for him. 

If he was being logical, though, it was really very simple. Sherlock had killed himself because he’d been unable to stand the disgrace. That was all. 

John would never have been able to do that to Sherlock. He knew that now, with more clarity than he’d ever had about anything else. If Sherlock had felt even an iota of what John felt for him, he’d never have been able to jump off that roof. Simple. Clean.

Ella's voice filtered into his mind. _Accept the fact that this is the best thing that can  happen, or will happen, to you ever again._

Mary could give him a family, children maybe. It was as close to happiness as he could get without Sherlock coming back to life. Acceptance was the only thing left. 

It was time to stop dreaming, and to stop hoping for miracles. Miracles never truly happen, after all.

Squaring his shoulders, John opened the door and strode in. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> John was reading this poem by W.H. Auden at Sherlock’s funeral.  
>  
> 
> Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,  
> Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,  
> Silence the pianos and with muffled drum  
> Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 
> 
> Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead  
> Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,  
> Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,  
> Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 
> 
> He was my North, my South, my East and West,  
> My working week and my Sunday rest,  
> My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;  
> I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
> 
> The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;  
> Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;  
> Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.  
> For nothing now can ever come to any good. 
> 
>  
> 
> For those of you who are interested in the inspiration for this fic, you can see the clip of a man reading it at his lover's funeral (from Four Weddings and a Funeral) [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXWclpGhcg)


End file.
